London – Amnesty International’s partiality in the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians no longer needs to be demonstrated. The British branch of the NGO has taken another step by marketing a line of T-shirts and objects bearing the words “End Israeli Apartheid” – “put an end to Israeli apartheid”.
The announcement of the sale of this line was made by Kristyan Benedict, the director of the campaign for Israel/Palestine and Syria, by a Tweet:
“New Amnesty T-shirts and other merchandise to support the global #EndIsraeliApartheid campaign are coming soon.”
Asked by the Jerusalem Post, Benedict said he was very confident in the success of the sales of these products: “Our campaign to help end the cruel system of Israeli apartheid against the Palestinians has received excellent reactions from people opposed to racism and discrimination. We think the T-shirts and other campaign products will be very popular.”
In February 2022, the NGO published a report in which it presented Israel as an apartheid state. In the press conference given by the report’s editors at the time, they affirmed “that it is the result of four years’ work carried out with the best experts in the field of apartheid as well as information provided by Palestinian organizations and Israelis. The editors also echo the refrain that “criticizing Israel is not antisemitism” and accuse governments of “creating a diversion by accusing Amnesty of racism and antisemitism”.
The report in question provoked an outcry in Israel but also abroad. In Israel, the Arab Minister for Regional Cooperation, Issawi Fredj (Meretz) himself insisted on denouncing the conclusions of this biased study.
A petition had been launched by Marc Eisenberg against this defamatory report which had collected more than 16,000 signatures.
A few weeks ago, the Israeli Foreign Ministry released a report calling Amnesty International “a central factor in the delegitimization of Israel. Amnesty is the locomotive of the accusations of apartheid against Israel and is the authority on the matter”.
Emmanuel Nahshon, deputy director and spokesperson for the Foreign Ministry added: “Amnesty is one of the most hostile organizations to Israel in the world. It is our enemy just like Iran, Hezbollah and all the detractors of Israel”.
For the director of NGO Monitor, Gérald Steinberg, quoted by Israel Hayom , “Amnesty has been leading a campaign to demonize everything related to Israel for 20 years. Its reports are unreliable and its directors have an ideology that combines the extreme left and antisemitism”.
Amnesty International’s branch in Israel said: “Apparently this line of products is from the British branch, which promotes a campaign against apartheid as a whole. The Israeli centre, which operates separately, deals only with the problem of apartheid in the ‘occupied territories’. We are reassured…
